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Yahshua our Messiah endured His awful death alone – completely cut off from Yahweh. Why? The answer should sober all of us.

      Thick, black clouds swept across the Jerusalem sky. The Jews, preparing themselves for the deeply emotional Passover service, grouped around in the gathering gloom and wondered where the light had gone. It was not even 3 o’clock in the afternoon! The high priest, in the midst of the confusion, was trying to organize the people assisting him with the last-minute arrangements needed for the annual ritual.

      In the murky darkness, on a hill just outside the city, the ultimate High Priest was about to perform the most meaningful sacrifice of all. And for the first time in His life, Yahshua experienced what it was like to be alone.

      Only several hours before, as the mob came to arrest Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, Yahshua had told His disciples, “Do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Mat 26:33).

      Now, it seemed, Yahshua was no longer able to count on that help. At the end of His human life, when the pain and anguish reached their peak, Yahshua could not rely on the strength that had seen Him through the trials of the previous 33 years. Why, in His greatest hour of need, was He left alone?

Why cut off?

When Yahshua cried out, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is to say, My Elohim, My Elohim, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Mat 27:46), He was not merely mouthing empty, emotional words. He knew that, hanging there on a stake, He was now totally alone, totally cut off from His heavenly Father. That is the condition most of the world finds itself in today! And most of the world is totally unaware of it.

This condition is brought about by sin. Isaiah was inspired to make it plain: “But your iniquities have separated you from your Elohim; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear “ (Isaiah 59:2).

When sin is present in our lives, we are cut off from contact with Yahweh. Sin and Yahweh are totally incompatible. The two just cannot exist together. Therefore, unless the penalty of our sin – death – is paid, we cannot ever regain the contact with Yahweh that is necessary for eternal life. And that, of course, is where Yahshua the Messiah enters the picture.

As the Creator of all mankind, His life was worth more than the sum total of all humanity. His death paid the penalty for every sin committed on this planet. But in paying this penalty, He had to take all these sins on His shoulders: “For He (Yahshua) who did not know sin, for your sakes made Himself sin, that we might through Him become the righteousness of YAHWEH” (2nd Cor 5:21).

And again: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and Yahweh hath laid on Him (Yahshua) the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).

As the clouds overhead darkened, and the pain in His body became almost unbearable, Yahshua knew He bore the sins of the world. And He knew He was bearing them alone.

Earlier, when He had been in mental agony, His Father had sent an angel to strengthen and encourage Him (Luke 22:43). Time after time in the humiliation of His scourging, Yahshua had drawn on the strength of His Father. The burden of responsibility – knowing that to fail in His mission would mean the oblivion of mankind – weighed heavily on His mind, and He constantly renewed His resolve through prayer to Yahweh in heaven.

Now, in the hour of Yahshua’s greatest need, there was nothing. Even if He were forced to abandon His own beloved Son, Yahweh the Father was not willing to compromise with sin.

That’s the way it had always been: “I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them…And I will surely hide My face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought” (Deut 31:17-18). “Then they shall cry out to YAHWEH, but He will not answer them. He will even hide His face from them in that time, as they have done evil in their doings” (Mic 3:4).

Yahweh, therefore was left with no alternative. If Yahshua had become “sin” for us, then Yahweh had to forsake Him. He would have to face the final minutes alone.

Yahshua, at last, could really comprehend what it meant to be cut off from Yahweh. He had come to this sick earth not just to give His life for all mankind, but also to experience human existence. By doing so, He would be able to intercede to the Father on our behalf with far more meaning and fervor.

“For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted just as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15). And so, it was, on that fateful spring day, Yahshua knew what it was like to be completely alone in the world.

As He hung there in torment, the words penned by King David became vivid in His mind. “ My El, My El, why have You forsaken Me, and are far from My deliverance, from the words of My groaning? O My Elohim, I cry by day, but You do not answer; and in the night, and there is no silence to Me.” (Psa 22:1-2). Read all of Psalm 22 and try to put yourself in Yahshua’s position. Try to imagine what it would be like being cut off from the strength and encouragement we have in Yahweh’s Congregation from our heavenly Father.

Yahweh doesn’t compromise

This episode at the very end of Yahshua’s earthly life contains several important lessons we need to consider carefully. It should reinforce in our mind that sin – any transgression of Yahweh’s spiritual law – will result in an estrangement from our heavenly Father. The fact that even Yahshua Himself had to experience that separation shows without a shadow of a doubt that Yahweh will not compromise with sin. And every time we sin, we become responsible for the brutal torture and suffering Yahshua had to endure. This knowledge should move us to live the most perfect lives we can.

This episode should also increase our faith. Yahweh says He does not compromise with sin, and we can believe what Yahweh has written in His Word. Not only should that encourage us, it should also make us aware that Yahweh means business when He emphasizes the punishment intended for those who willingly persist in wrongdoing. Yahshua died for our sins. His suffering, especially His mental agony when He knew He was totally alone in the ordeal, should make us consider what will happen to us if we refuse to repent of transgressing Yahweh’s Torah.

There can be no reasoning around the situation. Yahweh did not compromise with His Son, nor will He when it comes to the rest of humanity.